The Facts on the 527 Fairness Act ("Pence-Wynn")

The Pence-Wynn bill fundamentally undermines and backtracks on the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 and repeals key provisions of the 1974 campaign finance law enacted in the wake of the Watergate scandals.

The Pence-Wynn bill would do the following:

§ Authorize the return of million-dollar contributions from individuals to federal campaigns;

§ Allow federal officeholders and candidates to solicit such million-dollar contributions for their parties;

§ Allow federal officeholders and candidates to directly control the spending of such million-dollar contributions by their parties to support their own campaigns;

§ Allow federal officeholders and candidates to directly control the spending of unlimited amounts of soft money provided by corporations, labor unions and wealthy individuals on Internet ad campaigns to promote their candidacies;

Under the Pence-Wynn bill, a single individual could contribute an overall total of $3 million to the committees of a single political party and its federal candidates in a two-year election cycle, or $6 million to both parties and the parties' federal candidates. Federal officeholders and candidates would be able to solicit such huge contributions. (This includes a total of more than $1 million to each party and almost $2 million to each party's federal candidates.)

This represents a sixty-fold increase over the current overall limit of $101,400 that a single individual currently can give to all party committees and federal candidates in a two-year election cycle. (This includes a total of $61,400 to all party committees and $40,000 to all federal candidates.)

Since the Pence-Wynn bill would allow a federal officeholder or candidate to again solicit million-dollar contributions from an individual, the door would be opened again to donors providing million-dollar contributions in response to solicitations from federal officeholders whom the donors are seeking to influence.

The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 eliminated from federal campaigns precisely this kind of dangerous nexus between federal officeholders and big donors seeking influence that again would be allowed by the Pence-Wynn bill.

The Pence-Wynn bill would allow the following:

§ A Member of Congress to solicit and individuals to donate million-dollar contributions to the Member's political party;

§ A Member of Congress to directly control the spending of these million-dollar contributions by the Member's party to support the Member's campaign. In effect, this would eviscerate the current limit of $2,100 per election on the amount that an individual can contribute to a Member to spend on the Member's campaign;

§ A Member of Congress to spend unlimited amounts of soft money provided by corporations, labor unions and wealthy individuals to finance paid video and banner Internet ad campaigns to support the Member's campaign; and

§ State political parties to spend unlimited amounts of soft money provided by corporations, labor unions and wealthy individuals to attack and promote federal candidates through paid video and banner Internet ad campaigns.